The Revolving Solarium of Aix-les-Bains, an Amazing Building

It no longer exists but it must have been something impressive to behold. Aix-les-Bains is a town in eastern France, near the Alps, where one of the most unique structures I know of was built. Here is a photograph of the time where we can see the Solarium erected on the ground in all its splendour.

The image makes clear the peculiarity of the building. It was a sunbathing sanatorium that rotated around a vertical axis, optimally oriented towards our star. What was once the “adjustable heliotherapy station” in Aix-les-Bains has now been reduced to a few remains but deserves a place in any chronicle of amazing technology. This story begins in 1921, when the French naturalised Romanian doctor Jean Saidman defended his doctoral thesis on medical treatments based on the use of ultraviolet radiation, infrared, X-rays and radio waves. A proponent of actinotherapy (medical treatment based on the application of radiation, especially ultraviolet rays), he conceived the ultimate tool for his purposes: the rotating solarium. Aix-les-Bains was the ideal place to build something like this, because it was already a famous place for its thermal waters where many people traveled to be treated for bone and rheumatic problems.